Jan Lokpal Bill - Us and Them

Like all sane and sensible citizen, I am against corruption. Thus, in principle I really do not have anything against Anna Hazare or Arvind Kejriwal and their associates and patrons. However, I have a slightly different take on these mega anti corruption waves, or more anti-politician wave that we see from time to time.


I think, as a civil society we have a found an easy scapegoat in the political class to carry all our sins. As if our pronouncement is that the politicians are a complete different species, having 24 pairs of chromosomes while normal human beings have 23 (dogs – 78, chimpanzee – 48, tomato – 24). We have conveniently ignored the fact that politicians come from the same milieu that we form and belong to. Thus as individuals and as a group, we have become outwardly critical and carping, rather than being introspective, honest and corrective.

While the big corruption of the political class is not to be absolved by any means, ignoring the small but pernicious and seeping misdemeanors of the common man (irrespective of the socio economic strata) in their day to day lives is a bigger risk. Our whole approach has become to correct the design defect of a skyscraper after it has been fully erected and inhabited. I am afraid, that is not a sensible approach, and beware, the casualties will be high.

It is well known that the various super luxury vehicles belonging to a number of Mumbai-Pune based mega industrialists regularly travel at close to 200 kmph on the good stretches of the Mumbai Pune Expressway, traumatizing, few rare drivers in the middle lane, who are trying to obey the speed limits. Where is the influence of political class in this?

Where is the politician, when people break traffic rules – cars breaking signals, stopping on zebra crossings, pedestrians crossing the road at busy junctions on foot in spite of existence of footbridge and subways, pedestrians walking on the road, in spite of some nice pavements which have come up in parts of south Mumbai? Where is the politician when the residents of a chawl dump their garbage regularly on the road, because the nearest garbage bin is 200 mtrs away? Where is the dirty scumbag politician when the paan chewing multitudes of all economic class defile the country without any remorse or second thought? Where is the politician, when the celebs who are standing next to Anna giving voice to his movement and sharing the glory, go back and pay and accept cash as compensation to avoid tax?

Educated urban middle class is the hallowed group which holds the responsibility of being honest and upholding the value system of the society. And it is this class which has taken to air travel in the last decade in a big way. So, when the air hostess announces to switch off the mobile phone, which politician exhorts the executive, the businessman, the good mother and housewife to keep chattering till the plane takes off and then again just before the wheels have touched down? Where is that scoundrel politician in this scene? Who is to be blamed when my engineer, MBA colleague says that “I prefer corruption as an efficiency tax than no action at all” ? Where is the politician when academics eulogise jugaad as our source of innovativeness?

And we expect that one severely flawed, concentrating, counter-democratic and unsuitable bill for a large country like India will solve our entire corruption problem? While the entire society goes about breaking the small rules and laws that small people can break, we believe that putting another law to stop the misdemeanors of the big and powerful will solve our problem of corruption forever? We believe that “our” corruptions, because they are minor (perhaps because we do not have the opportunity to indulge in bigger corruption or we lack the unpardonable daring and chutzpah to commit acts of big corruption) are not of any import, but the corruption of politicians are completely unconnected to the utterly debased moral fibre of the larger society and polity. If politicians were a homogeneously separate species than us, perhaps there refrain would be, “Wah Chachu, tumhara pyaar pyaar, aur hamara pyar sex?”

A society, which has misinterpreted its fundamental advice from its scripture and ignored the probity of means just to justify the goals, and such mindset, which has been exacerbated by last two decades of unbridled materialism and personal profit seeking, will continue to generate politicians, bureaucrats and corporate executives, who are nefarious, corrupt and criminal. A society which does not follow rules will get rulers who do not follow rules. A polity deserves the leaders it chooses.

Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal should ponder over this and exhort their followers to look inward, and around themselves and bring about the changes at home and neighborhood first. Without that, RTI will just become a tool of self seeking motives, and such mega events of fasting, will just be flashes in the pan and festivities for the flower children.